Swinney’s soft-focus videos cannot erase years of SNP failure in Scottish islands

The clip has got people in the isles talking, but not in the way that the First Minister intended. People were quick to make the point that their beef is not with ferry crews but with the people running CalMac from the top – and the SNP ministers who have enabled economic and social decline in our islands as a result.

Soft-focus social media clips of the First Minister smiling his way around Scotland’s island communities cannot erase years of SNP failure.

At the top of that long list of failure surely has to come the state of our transport network. People in the Northern Isles have long been frustrated by the decline in quality in our ferries under the SNP’s watch, the only silver lining being the recognition that if we were under direct SNP control like our cousins in the Western Isles, things could be even worse.

When the First Minister came to Shetland this week he pronounced himself “dumbfounded” by complaints about the ferry service. For someone who has been a minister for almost every moment of the last eighteen years you might hope he would be better briefed.

The problem for Swinney is one that will be increasingly obvious between now and the Scottish elections next May. For a generation he has been at the heart of an SNP Government in Edinburgh that has spent its time playing politics with Westminster and daydreaming about independence rather than getting on with the job that they were elected to do, while choking off positive political action from local communities.

The First Minister came to Shetland with news about his sudden enthusiasm for greater autonomy for the isles. It was a bit rich coming from the man who has centralised control of just about every public service imaginable, and who as Alex Salmond’s finance secretary once threatened to seize control of education provision from local councils.

To turn up with notions of a conversation about “island autonomy” months out from an election will provide little comfort for islanders who have seen police, fire and ambulance services centralised away from their community by his government – sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

If the First Minister has political capital to spare, however, then he could do worse than to give funding to Dogs Against Drugs in their fight against the flow of dangerous drugs to the isles. The organisation has proved its worth time and again, to the extent that it has been replicated by the communities in Orkney and the Western Isles. That is real autonomy in action – built from the ground up, not bestowed by Bute House.

Swinney’s island odyssey may have been intended to boost the prospects of nationalist candidates in the Highlands and Islands ahead of next year’s elections. Instead it has shown how out of touch the SNP have become. If this is what it looks like to have a “special place” in John Swinney’s heart then I suspect we can do rather better.

Alistair Carmichael is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland